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Entries categorized "AZBlueMeanie"

When testimony in the trial began last Thursday, Sheriff's Deputy Louis DiPietro took the stand as plaintiffs' attorneys zeroed in on his motivation for stopping Manuel de Jesus Ortega Melendres, a Mexican tourist in the U.S. legally, who was stopped outside a church in Cave Creek where day laborers were known to gather. Melendres was the passenger in a car driven by a White driver.

Melendres claims that deputies detained him for nine hours and that the detention was unlawful. (This plainly would violate the "stop" conditions for SB 1070 laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court recently in Arizona v. U.S.) Attorneys for the plaintiffs have long contended that the Sheriff's Office conflates being Hispanic and being a day laborer with being an undocumented immigrant. DiPietro said as much in his testimony. Racial profiling trial: Ruling to be based on current conditions.

[Judge] Snow focused in on the background, training and experience of Deputy Louis DiPietro, who stopped a car in Cave Creek that had just picked up a group of day laborers, including Manuel de Jesus Ortega-Melendres. Ortega-Melendres is a named plaintiff in the lawsuit.

Of particular interest to Snow was a statement DiPietro made last week regarding his opinion that most day laborers are in the country illegally. Attorneys for the plaintiffs have long contended that the Sheriff's Office conflates being Hispanic and being a day laborer with being an undocumented immigrant.

DiPietro said he formed that opinion based on the stop he made in Cave Creek nearly five years ago.

"Is there any other basis other than that day on which you have now formed that opinion," Snow asked.

"The fact that that type of work doesn't require any type of, um, you don't have to show an ID, um, it would be easier, that type of work would be easier for, um, a person in this country illegally to, um, get because they wouldn't have the proper paperwork for other types of employment," DiPietro replied.

After a little more than an hour on the stand, DiPietro was excused.

On to the main event Tuesday. Crazy Uncle Joe Arpaio took the witness stand next.

The research was carried out for the group Tax Justice Network, which campaigns against tax havens, by James Henry, former chief economist at consultants McKinsey & Co.

He used data from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, United Nations and central banks.

The study estimating the extent of global private financial wealth held in offshore accounts - excluding non-financial assets such as real estate, gold, yachts and racehorses - puts the sum at between $21 and $32 trillion.

The report also highlights the impact on the balance sheets of 139 developing countries of money held in tax havens by private elites, putting wealth beyond the reach of local tax authorities.

The research estimates that since the 1970s, the richest citizens of these 139 countries had amassed $7.3 to $9.3 trillion of "unrecorded offshore wealth" by 2010.

I posted last week about how the mighty Wurlitzer of the right-wing noise machine, led by FAUX News Fraudcasting, fabricated a controversy by selectively editing a speech by President Obama to purposefully distort his words into "You didn"t build that," for GOPropaganda last week that the GOP and Willard "Mittens" Romney himself picked up and ran with. Then FAUX News Fraudcasting congratulated everyone, including the "lamesteam" media villagers, for repeating their GOPropaganda. FAUX News Fraudcasting was mighty proud of its "big lie" GOPropaganda capability.

In retrospect, this is probably a quote Mitt Romney wishes he could take back.

This clip (below the fold) comes from the opening ceremonies at the 2002 Winter Olympics, at which Romney reminded the athletes, "[You] Olympians know, however, that you didn't get here solely on your own power. For most of you, loving parents, sisters or brothers, encouraged your hopes, coaches guided, communities built venues in order to organize competitions. All Olympians stand on the shoulders of those who lifted them."

Spanish borrowing costs soared for the third-straight trading day on Monday as fears grew that the country’s teetering financial situation was too dire to be calmed by a limited bailout of its banking system.

European leaders have worked to stanch their economic crisis in recent weeks, giving Spain a partial bailout targeting its banks and considering additional European oversight for those banks. But investors on Monday were trading Spanish 10-year bonds at euro-era highs as markets dropped and officials braced for a tough stretch of negotiations about Europe’s future.

* * *

The Bank of Spain added to the bad news Monday, announcing that the Spanish economy shrank by 0.4 percent in the second quarter of 2012, slightly worse than at the beginning of the year. Spanish media reports over the weekend said that six of Spain’s troubled regional governments were preparing to ask the national government for financial assistance. Should that happen, Spanish leaders would come under more pressure to ask for aid beyond the $121 billion that was earmarked for their banking system last month.

* * *

The new fears over the euro zone’s fourth-largest economy sent the currency to its lowest levels in more than two years, at $1.21, and pushed Spanish and German markets down by more than 3 percent on Monday, with Spanish regulators imposing a ban on short sales on Spain’s stock indexes to try to keep markets from plunging further. The reaction suggests that the initial bailout may turn out to be insufficient before it has even formally gone into operation. That will take place this week.

The NCAA announced sanctions on Monday morning in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal and the cover-up by Penn State officials.

NCAA president Mark Emmert revealed that a multi-year "death penalty" (suspension of play) was seriously considered by the NCAA, but the NCAA decided upon sanctions that were not just punitive but corrective of the sports culture at Penn State. Some argue that the penalties imposed are a fate worse than the death penalty because the sanctions affect the past legacy of Joe Paterno, the current football program, and the future ability of Penn State to put a competitive football program on the field for years to come.

"In the Penn State case, the results were perverse and unconscionable," Emmert said.

"No price the NCAA can levy with repair the damage inflicted by Jerry Sandusky on his victims," he said, referring to the former Penn State defensive coordinator convicted of 45 counts of child sex abuse last month.

* * *

The NCAA has hit Penn State with a $60 million sanction, a four-year football postseason ban and a vacation of all wins dating to 1998, the organization said Monday morning.

The career record of Joe Paterno will reflect these vacated records, the NCAA said.

Penn State must also reduce 10 initial and 20 total scholarships each year for a four-year period.

A new National Agenda Opinion Poll by the University of Delaware’s Center for Political Communication reveals support for voter identification laws is strongest among Americans who harbor negative sentiments toward African Americans.

The study finds that racial resentment trumps party affiliation and political attitudes. While they found Republicans and conservatives overwhelmingly support voter suppression (because that's what they do), they found that Democrats and liberals "with the highest 'racial resentment'" also express strong support for the laws.

The Brennan Center, NYU Law School's public policy institute that focuses on democracy and justice issues, has a new report detailing the challenges faced by voters in 10 states with new, restrictive voter ID laws. Those laws ultimately mean that as many as 500,000 eligible voters won't cast ballots because of the insurmountable barriers these laws erect, particularly for rural voters. In other words, yes, these new laws are basically poll taxes.

The cost of the IDs aside, most of these voters don't have access to transportation to obtain the ID. To complicate matters more, in many of these states, the offices that are designated to issue IDs are open infrequently for short periods of time.

Even if someone seeking photo ID manages to travel to an ID-issuing office, there is no guarantee it will be open during regular business hours. In Wisconsin, Alabama, and Mississippi, fewer than half of all ID-issuing offices are open five days a week. None are open on weekends. And some offices maintain truly unusual hours: the office in Woodville, Mississippi is open only on the second Thursday of each month.

The report also provides an extensive look at the scarcity of ID-issuing offices in areas heavily populated by people of color and those in poverty — the exact population that most lack government-issued photo ID.

The media villagers regularly portray our political system as "broken," blaming the two major political parties. The rise in "no party preference" voters, the media villagers tell us, is evidence that our political system is broken.

The media villagers -- most of whom register as independent/no party preference to maintain the illusion that they have no political bias -- put "independent" voters up on a pedestal and extoll the virtues of independent voters as being the ideal voter.

This is just the media villagers expressing their own air of superiority and disdain for us mere mortals.

An "independent" voter simply indicates "no party preference" checked on the voter registration form. This does not magically transform one into an independent thinker who carefully weighs the candidates' positions and makes a virtuous choice of the best candidate. This media conception of the independent voter is a myth, like unicorns.

The average voter spends less than five minutes deciding for whom to vote. This is what political scientists refer to as "low information voters." This voter is making a decision based upon preconceived political biases and an emotional response to negative political advertising, i.e., their "gut feeling."

This is not the kind of voter who should be put up on a pedestal and extolled as being the ideal voter. If our political system is "broken," it is because of declining civic participation in our political process. The politically disengaged are the problem, not the solution.

As I have posted previously, independent voters are not "independent," but rather are "leaners." There is only a very small percentage of the electorate who are true "swing" voters.

While it is fashionable for voters to call themselves “independent” - both in how they respond to surveys or in their voter registration - polling data tell us that most people who claim to be independent really are not. A Gallup survey earlier this year noted that 40% of those polled identified as independents, but after “leaners” toward one party or the other were weeded out, the percentage of real independents was only about 10%. That squares with a more recent report from Ipsos’ Clifford Young, who pegged independents as 11% of the likely voters in the upcoming election. Political science research suggests that the real proportion of independents in the November electorate will be even smaller, perhaps 5% to7%.

* * *

[T]he “swingy” part of the electorate is small, only a relative handful of every 100 voters. Most of the change from one quadrennium to another comes from variable turnout in the two partisan camps. Therefore, the key question this November will be less the destination of the hard-core independents than the relative enthusiasm of Democrats versus Republicans.

Or as I advise political campaigns, all elections are base voter elections. Close elections are not decided by "swing" voters -- a favorite meme of the media villagers -- but rather by which political party's base voters turn out to vote.

Construction vehicles and police arrived shortly after dawn Sunday, barricading the street and sidewalks near the statue, erecting a chain-link fence then concealing the statue with a blue tarp. Workers then used jackhammers to free the statue and a forklift to lower it onto a flat-bed truck that rolled into stadium garage bay about 100 feet away. . . as 100 to 150 students watched, some chanting, “We are Penn State.”

Many of those watching the removal stared in disbelief and at least one woman wept, while others expressed anger at the decision.

* * *

Dozens later gathered to watch workers remove Paterno’s name and various plaques from the concrete walls behind the statue. Much of the work was hidden by blue tarps strung across temporary chain link fences while barricades kept observers on the other side of the street. Few watching said they understood the decision and feared what kind of punishment the NCAA would pile on.

* * *

Penn State President Rod Erickson said he decided to have the statue removed and put into storage because it “has become a source of division and an obstacle to healing.”

“I believe that, were it to remain, the statue will be a recurring wound to the multitude of individuals across the nation and beyond who have been the victims of child abuse,” Erickson said in a statement released at 7 a.m. Sunday.

He said Paterno’s name will remain on the campus library because it “symbolizes the substantial and lasting contributions to the academic life and educational excellence that the Paterno family has made to Penn State University.”

Meanwhile, the NCAA said that that it would levy “corrective and punitive measures” against Penn State in the wake of the child sex-abuse scandal involving former football assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. The organization announced Sunday that it would spell out the sanctions on Monday but disclosed no details. SeePenn State to face NCAA penalities.

NCAA President Mark Emmert hasn’t ruled out the possibility of shutting down the Penn State football program in the wake of the scandal, adding that he had “never seen anything as egregious.” [The last time the NCAA shut down a football program with the so-called “death penalty” was in the 1980s, when SMU was forced to drop the sport because of extra benefits violations.]

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Just last night, Rachel reported on Mitt Romney's new campaign offensive -- based entirely on a President Obama quote that's been taken out of context -- and stepped back to consider the larger context, which leads to a subject near and dear to me.

"There's also an interesting conversation to be had," Rachel noted, "about how much you can get away with and still be considered a viable candidate for president." This conversation can be built on straightforward question: "Are we so inured to the idea of everybody calling each other a liar, that when somebody actually really does blatantly lie it doesn't matter anymore? Ultimately, that is not a question about these guys fighting it. That is a question about us."

1. The Romney campaign argued this week that Fisker Automotive "got over half a billion dollars in loan guarantees from the Department of Energy, which did not result in jobs being created in America, but actually jobs being created overseas in Finland."

This has been debunked over, and over, and over, and over again. It was a lie when it came up a year ago, and now it's been downgraded to a rather pathetic lie.

2. At a campaign event in Bowling Green, Ohio, Romney said Obama intends to "raise taxes on small business."

No, actually, he doesn't. In fact, it's a detail that generally goes overlooked, but the president has actually cut taxes on small businesses several times.

3. At the same event, Romney added, "This president said he'd cut the deficit in half. He's doubled it."

Maybe Romney doesn't know what "double" means. The deficit on Obama's first day was $1.3 trillion. Last year, it was also $1.3 trillion. This year, it's projected to be $1.1 trillion. When he says the president "more than doubled" the deficit, as he has many times, Romney's lying.

4. Romney also argued, "The president and his administration said they are going to usurp your religious freedom by demanding that you provide products to your employees, if you're the Catholic Church, that violates your own conscience."

Neither the Catholic Church nor any other house of worship are required to "provide products" -- in this case, contraception -- to their employees. Churches are exempt from preventive-care requirements. Romney knows this, but continues to lie anyway.

5. He went on to say, "There's only one person I know who has cut Medicare by $500 billion, and that's President Obama."

The Libor scandal is more than just the latest financial deception to come to light. It exposes a fraud that runs to the heart of our financial system.

The London interbank offered rate is a benchmark for a range of interest rates, and the misdeeds making headlines have to do with how those rates are set. If insiders can manipulate the basic measurement of a loan — the interest rate — there is rot at the core of the financial system.

The British financial giant Barclays has admitted to manipulating the rate from 2005 to at least 2009. When the bank made a bet on the direction in which interest rates would turn, the Barclays employees who submit data for calculating interest rates would fake their numbers to help Barclays traders win the bet. Day after day, year after year, bet after bet, Barclays made money by fixing bets for its own traders.

We don’t know who else was fixing bets. Other big banks, including some of the largest in the United States, are under investigation. Barclays doesn’t appear to have acted alone, and it is clear that its fixes weren’t secret deals by rogue traders. Traders put requests to manipulate the rates in writing and even joked about delivering champagne to those who helped them.

I have been trying to find some good easy to understand reporting on the LIBOR scandal that most readers who have never even heard of LIBOR before now can follow and understand why this is yet another major financial scandal by wanker bankers, the masters of the universe who are "our betters."

The brilliant writers at The Daily Show did my work for me in the two video segments below the fold.

If you haven’t been following the Libor scandal, read Dylan Matthews’ great primer. But if you refuse to do even that, here it is in a few sentences: Libor is the rate at which banks lend to each other. It’s considered a measure of how safe the financial system is. As such, many banks use it as a benchmark to set the rate on the consumer debt you and I buy — they start with the Libor rate and then they add on whatever they think our risk is. But there’s something odd about Libor: It’s a rate the banks report themselves. And, in recent weeks, we’ve found out Barclays was lying about it.

In recent days, however, we’ve found out that it wasn’t just Barclays lying about it. Everybody was lying about it. Citigroup was lying about it. German banks were lying about it. We know a number of banks — though we don’t know exactly who — are talking to the feds about a settlement. We know HSBC, Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase are being investigated.

On Wednesday, Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, was asked about Libor. “The biggest impact is once more undermining the integrity of a system that has already been undermined substantially. There was this huge hole to dig out of in terms of getting trust back and now it’s that much deeper.”

Remember when Ronald Reagan said “trust, but verify”? Well, we’ve spent the last few years verifying. And when it comes to the financial system, the lesson is not to have too much trust.

Naomi Robbins, who specializes in good graphs, says there’s a problem with [our eralier] chart. “What bothers me is that over half (5 of 9 data points) of the horizontal axis provides data on twenty percent of the population. This gives the visual impression that Obama is raising taxes on people other than the top few percent and that Romney’s tax cuts also affect more people than is the case.”

She’s right. And Robbins did more than carp about our graph. She made a better one:

What you’re seeing there is the same data as on the first chart, but with “equally spaced intervals on the horizontal axis represent[ing] equal percentages of taxpayers.” The result is that the two candidate’s tax plans come through much more clearly. Romney’s plan is a large tax cut for the top 60 percent, a huge tax cut for the top few percent, and a significant tax increase for the bottom few percent, as he permits a few temporary tax breaks that benefit low-income folks to expire. Obama’s plan keeps the current tax rates for almost everyone but the top few percent, who face a very large tax increase.

It’s also worth noting that these numbers only tell half the story: Romney has promised to offset the cost of most of his tax plan through spending cuts and tax reforms, and so any analysis of who pays is incomplete without those policies. But that information is impossible to graph, as Romney hasn’t released it yet.

It's a "secret plan" that can wait unti the next Congress, "I don't have to explain anything to you people."

Arizona's Tea-Publican controlled legislature passed the nation's most restrictive abortion measure earlier this year in part to assist Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) in his anti-abortion crusade to impose a similar 20 week abortion restriction in federal law on the District of Columbia. Franks is behaving like a tyrannical "Mayor of D.C."

This is part of the anti-choice, anti-contraception agenda of the Christian Taliban that wants to get a case before the U.S. Supreme Court in the belief that the conservative activist Justices of the Court may overturn Roe v. Wade.

The ACLU has filed suit against the Arizona legislative measure, but Rep. Trent Franks doesn't want to have to wait as long as it will take before Arizona's law is in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. Franks continues to push for the 20 week abortion ban on the District of Columbia because, if it were to become law, a lawsuit would be filed in the D.C. Circuit Court and have a direct line of appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton for the District of Columbia discussed Rep. Frank's disenfranchisement of the residents of the District of Columbia by refusing to permit her to speak on their behalf at committee hearings, and his attempt to gain a federal imprimatur for the 20 week abortion ban during a segment of the Rachel Maddow Show on Thursday night (video below the fold).

Romney has said in financial disclosure statements that he “was not involved in the operations of any Bain Capital entity in any way” after Feb. 11, 1999. But he was still legally the CEO, with numerous duties and obligations that were his alone, until early 2002.

Interviews with a half-dozen of Romney’s former partners and associates, as well as public records, show that he was not merely an absentee owner during this period. He signed dozens of company documents, including filings with regulators on a vast array of Bain’s investment entities. And he drove the complex negotiations over his own large severance package, a deal that was critical to the firm’s future without him, according to his former associates.

Indeed, by remaining CEO and sole shareholder, Romney held on to his leverage in the talks that resulted in his generous 10-year retirement package, according to former associates.

“The elephant in the room was not whether Mitt was involved in investment decisions but Mitt’s retention of control of the firm and therefore his ability to extract a huge economic benefit by delaying his giving up of that control,” said one former associate, who, like some other Romney associates, spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for the company.

The first outside investor in Bain was a leading London financier, Sir Jack Lyons, who made a $2.5-million investment through a Panama shell company set up by a Swiss money manager, further shielding his identity. Years later, Lyons was convicted in an unrelated stock fraud scandal.

About $9 million came from rich Latin Americans, including powerful Salvadoran families living in Miami during their country's brutal civil war.

* * *

Romney faced unusual complications when he launched Bain Capital, a spinoff of Bain & Co., the Boston consulting firm he joined when he graduated from Harvard Business School.

At the time, U.S. officials were publicly accusing some exiles in Miami of funding right-wing death squads in El Salvador. Some family members of the first Bain Capital investors were later linked to groups responsible for killings, though no evidence indicates those relatives invested in Bain or benefited from it.

Romney has said he checked the foreign investors' backgrounds. His campaign and Bain Capital declined to provide specifics.

Congressman Raúl Grijalva issued the following statement in response to the Los Angeles Times report:

For Immediate Release

July 19, 2012

Washington, D.C. - Rep. Raúl Grijalva released the following statement today in response to this morning's Los Angeles Times article examining the funding sources Mitt Romney used to start Bain Capital.

"Today's Los Angeles Timesinvestigation into where Mitt Romney got his money to start Bain Capital convinced me, and I imagine everyone who read it, that he needs to come clean about his finances. We now know that he built his fortune thanks to murky foreign donors who routed their money through Panamanian and Swiss accounts that helped obscure their sources. Among those early donors were British financiers later convicted of fraud and an expatriate Salvadoran group with family ties to paramilitary death squads. Mr. Romney may try to convince us there’s nothing to see here. After reading this story and other recent revelations about his past, I don’t think anyone believes him.

How is it that these people are allowed to be associated with the "party of Lincoln" -- Abraham Lincoln, the president who preserved the Union? They clearly share more in common with Jefferson Davis and the confederate insurrectionists.

The three Republican contenders for the state House and Senate seats representing Rim Country launched a full-throated call to wage figurative war on the federal government at a joint appearance last week before the Payson Tea Party.

Incumbent state representatives Chester Crandell, running now for the Senate, and Rep. Brenda Barton and Flagstaff Tea Party Chairman Bob Thorpe, both running for the state House, all support a constitutional amendment to revoke the terms of Arizona’s statehood so the state Legislature could take control of federal lands in Arizona. [Proposition 120]

The crusade against federal authority dominated the discussion before more than 100 Tea Party backers at Tiny’s Restaurant.

“It’s time ‘we the people’ stepped up … we will take over the management of the land, of the water, of the air” from the federal government, said Rep. Crandell, the lone Republican running for the District 4 Senate seat, which includes northern Gila County, Camp Verde and Flagstaff.

Rep. Barton, who shifted her official address to Payson to run in the newly configured District 6, repeatedly quoted the Declaration of Independence’s justification of rebellion against England more than 200 years ago, saying a government can exist only with the consent of the governed.

“I really want to withdraw my consent,” she said. “This is not a democracy. It is a constitutional republic. If it were a democracy, all the wolves would decide which lambs they want to have for dinner. Right now in the Valley [Laurie Roberts Here it is: My list of kooks at Capitol is] calling us ‘kooks,’ they’re working very, very hard to ‘dekookify’ the Legislature. They want to get rid of anyone who wants to live under the constitution.”

Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked the No.1 item on the president's congressional "to-do-list," refusing to allow a vote on a bill that would give tax breaks for companies that "insource" jobs to the U.S. from overseas while eliminating tax deductions for companies that move jobs abroad.

* * *

The bill, which needed 60 votes in order for the Senate to [end the GOP filibuster], was defeated on a vote of 56-42.

With job creation the top issue this campaign season, and outsourcing being blamed as a big contributor to the high unemployment rate, Democrats saw the bill as an election-year winner. Sponsored by Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan, who is running for reelection, the bill made it to the top of the "to-do list" for Congress President Barack Obama unveiled earlier this year.

The Bring Jobs Home Act would provide a 20% tax break for the costs of moving jobs back to the United States and would rescind business expense deductions available to companies that are associated with the cost of moving operations overseas.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, had warned Democrats before the vote that his party would want to amend the bill -- possibly with hot-button issues like repealing the health care reform law or extending the Bush-era tax cuts for all income levels.

In other words, the Septegenarian Ninja Turtle filibustered a jobs bill with non-germane amendments that are ideological talking points for Tea-Publicans. McConnell is sabotaging the American economy in pursuit of his partisan goal "to make President Obama a one term president," and he does not care how many Americans he harms in the process. This is sedition by insurrectionists serving multi-national corporations and harming American citizens.

So Ann Romney toldGood Morning America this morning that she and her husband had released "all (you) people need to know and understand about our financial situation." (There is some dispute from the video whether she said "you people" or simply switched from saying "all you need to know" to "all people need to know" mid-sentence, whatever).

Well, no actually, Ann, you have not even produced the full 2010 tax return. You see, there is a very important disclosure document missing from your 2010 tax returns. Steve Benen summarizes in The twists and turns of tax returns:

[I]t turns out that the one year of materials we do have -- Romney released his 2010 returns earlier in the year -- may be incomplete, leaving the public with zero full reports to scrutinize. The Huffington Postreportsthat documentation related to his Swiss bank account is legally required, but has not been released. Does this really matter? Actually, it does.

By serving as a curtain between Romney's U.S. accounts and his foreign holdings, Romney's Swiss account could shield many financial activities from American scrutiny. Hypothetically, any politically unpopular investments, clever and complex asset sales designed to lower Romney's tax bills or other activities would be far more difficult to decipher.

Greg Sargent also had a good report on this, stressing the importance of understanding how Romney may have gone about reducing his tax liabilities. When Greg checked with the Tax Policy Center's Joseph Rosenberg about this, he confirmed that today's revelation is another piece in the broader pattern: "There could be assets abroad that wouldn't necessarily be shown in the standard tax return, but would be on this other sort of disclosure form. What are these accounts, and what is the purpose for having them?"

The Romney campaign has not yet explained this need for so much secrecy.

Best practices for a politician is full disclosure. But Willard "Mittens" Romney has opted to run the most secretive and deceptive campaign for president since Richard M. Nixon. The result will be a death by a thousand cuts as the drip-drip-drip of media disclosures and "no comment" from the Romney campaign will continue.

Romney spent Wednesday on the campaign trail once again questioning President Obama as an "other," not American but "foreign." This is an old GOP tactic to question the Americaness and patriotism of anyone who does not share their extremist conservative views, i.e., the majority of Americans.

It is Mittens Romney who has bona fide foreign connections, from Swiss bank accounts, to a blocker corporation in Bermuda, to bank accounts in the tax avoidance haven of the Caymen Islands. Then there is Sheldon Adelson's money from Macao pouring into the Romney and GOP Super PACs. There is also the better part of three years Romney spent in Paris, France as a draft dodger during the Vietnam war, but I digress.

When Mitt Romney launched Bain Capital in 1984, he struggled at first to raise enough money for the untested venture.

So he and his partners tapped an eclectic roster of investors, raising more than a third of their first $37-million investment fund from wealthy foreigners.

Most of the foreign investors' money came through corporations registered in Panama, then known for tax advantages and unusual banking secrecy.

Previously unreported details, documented in Massachusetts corporate filings and other public records, show that Bain Capital was enmeshed in the largely opaque world of international high finance from its very inception.

The documents don't indicate any wrongdoing, and experts say that such financial vehicles are common for wealthy foreign investors. But the new details come as President Obama has criticized Romney for profiting from Bain Capital's own offshore investment entities, which are unavailable to most Americans.

The "most corrupt sheriff in America," Crazy Uncle Joe Arpaio, goes on trial today in a civil lawsuit for a declaratory judgment that the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department has a systematic policy of discrimination of racially profiling Latinos. U.S. District Court Judge Murray Snow is presiding over the trial that begins today and is expected to last until early August. Ariz. sheriff faces profiling allegations at trial:

Now, the sheriff in Arizona's most populous county will have to convince a federal judge who is presiding over a lawsuit that heads to trial on Thursday and is expected to last until early August.

The plaintiffs say Arpaio's officers based some traffic stops on the race of Hispanics who were in vehicles, had no probable cause to pull them over and made the stops so they could inquire about their immigration status.

"He is not free to say whatever he wants," said Dan Pochoda, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, one of the groups that has pushed the lawsuit against Arpaio.

"He will be called as a witness in our case," Pochoda said. "He will not have control over the flow of information, and he is not the final arbiter."

The plaintiffs aren't seeking money damages and instead are seeking a declaration that Arpaio's office racially profiles and an order that requires it to make changes to prevent what they said is discriminatory policing.

* * *

The lawsuit marks the first case in which the sheriff's office has been accused of systematically racially profiling Latinos and will serve as a bellwether for a similar yet broader civil rights lawsuit filed against Arpaio in May by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Romney has had years to prepare for these anticipated attacks on his career at Bain Capital and the great wealth he accumulated there. He has had years to have well-paid accountants to manage his investments to avoid any appearance of impropriety or questions in his tax returns that he knew he would have to produce if he ever wanted to be president -- just as his father did in 1968.

And yet Romney has been caught completely flat-footed and unprepared for the attacks that he knew would come. "Incompetence" is the only word to describe the Romney campaign. Or perhaps Romney's "arrogance" is the problem. As his wife Ann said in an interview, "It's his turn" -- as if the presidency is an emolument to which he is entitled simply by virtue of his great wealth.

To paraphrase the Guess Who:

He's come undoneHe didn't know what he was headed forAnd when I found what he was headed forIt was too late

McCain, often considered the GOP’s leading voice on foreign affairs, said the accusations made by House Republicans against Huma Abedin are “an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable woman, a dedicated American and a loyal public servant.”

Abedin is the long-time aide to Clinton who has worked for the former first lady and U.S. senator since the administration of President Bill Clinton. In recent years, she served as Hillary Clinton’s “body man” along the 2008 presidential campaign trail and has traveled the world with the secretary as a senior State Department aide. The perch means Abedin is often photographed standing behind Clinton.

* * *

In a floor speech Wednesday, McCain defended Abedin, calling her “an intelligent, upstanding, hard-working and loyal servant of our country and our government, who has devoted countless days of her life to advancing the ideals of the nation she loves and looking after its most precious interests. That she has done so while maintaining her characteristic decency, warmth and good humor is a testament to her ability to bear even the most arduous duties with poise and confidence.

“Put simply, Huma represents what is best about America: the daughter of immigrants, who has risen to the highest levels of our government on the basis of her substantial personal merit and her abiding commitment to the American ideals that she embodies so fully,” McCain said. “I am proud to know Huma and to call her my friend.”

The lawmakers have sent letters to inspectors general at the departments of Homeland Security, Justice and State asking about the U.S. government’s involvement with the Muslim Brotherhood, noting that the group calls for “civilization jihad.”

The Maricopa County Superior Court smacked down "Birther" Secretary of State Ken Bennett today for his refusal to accept the petitions of the Quality Education and Jobs Act initiative on the specious grounds of a "clerical error," based upon the practices of his office, not any requirement of statute. Judge Robert Oberbillig had harsh words for "Birther" Bennett's arbitrary and capricious conduct.

Press release from Quality Education and Jobs (h/t Carolyn Classen):

Judge Upholds Voter Rights'; Overturns Bennett's Petition Rejection

July 18, 2012Quality Education and Jobs

Following a hearing lasting approximately 20 minutes, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge today upheld the rights of Arizona voters, saying that Secretary of State Ken Bennett's decision to reject 290,849 petition signatures to place the Quality Education and Jobs citizens' initiative on the November ballot was unconstitutional.

"I honestly don't know why we need to be here," said Judge Robert Oberbillig during the proceedings.

"Judge Oberbillig's ruling reaffirms what the Arizona's Constitution and state law make very clear - a hyper-technicality is never grounds to overturn the rights of Arizona voters," said Ann-Eve Pedersen, chair of the Quality Education and Jobs campaign. "Education opponents know there is vast popular support for this initiative, so they had to resort to these types of desperate measures to try to keep it off the ballot. We were always confident that the will of Arizona voters would prevail in court, and with this ruling, we are now even more confident that Prop. 204 will prevail in November."

The Quality Education and Jobs initiative will renew the one-cent sales tax when it expires in 2013 to provide dedicated, permanent revenue to provide basic funding for education that the Legislature cannot cut. Prop. 204 will support education across the spectrum: K-12, charter schools, vocational education, community colleges, universities and GED programs.

The legal case centered on whether the Quality Education and Jobs volunteer-led committee complied with the state Constitution and state law in submitting a record number of petition signatures to the Secretary of State's Office. Bennett rejected the 290,849 signatures on June 25, after making a unilateral decision that a clerical error on a paper document filed with his office invalidated the signatures. Even though his office had accepted an electronic filing with ballot language that matched the language attached to each of the 19,071 petitions submitted, Bennett determined that the electronic filing was not "official."

The campaign legal team, headed by former Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Stanley Feldman, successfully argued that Bennett's decision was not constitutional. The Arizona Constitution requires the Secretary of State to place a measure on the ballot if supporters meet four requirements, all of which were met in this case.

Secretary Bennett could appeal the lower court ruling to the Arizona Supreme Court, but doing so would put additional taxpayer dollars at risk. Under Arizona law, the courts could order the state to pay all legal and court costs if Bennett does not prevail.

"The courts have overturned Secretary Bennett's arbitrary decision. He should respect that ruling and complete validation of the 290,849 signatures turned in to his office," said Pedersen.

"Secretary Bennett's job is to facilitate democracy, not obstruct it," she said. "Appealing this decision only delays the process further and puts taxpayer dollars at risk."

Amid a growing chorus of conservative commentators and Tea-Publican politicians calling on Willard "Mittens" Romney to release his tax returns, the conservative National Review late Tuesday published an editorial opinion, Release the Returns - The Editors - National Review Online (excerpts):

Romney argues that whatever he releases will not be enough to satisfy the Obama campaign and its factota in the media, who are, once again, proving their bias and double standards. Romney is right, but he should release the returns anyway. Let them go fish.

* * *

The Romney campaign says he has released as many returns as candidate John Kerry did in 2004, and cites Teresa Heinz Kerry’s refusal to release any of her tax returns. Neither is an apt comparison. John Kerry actually released returns from 1999 through 2003, and also released tax returns during his Senate runs. As for Teresa Heinz, Romney isn’t the wealthy spouse of a candidate, but the candidate himself. In 2008, John McCain released two years of returns, but he had been filling out financial disclosure forms for decades as a senator. Romney protests that he is not legally obliged to release any tax returns. Of course not. He is no longer in the realm of the private sector, though, where he can comply with the letter of the law with the Securities and Exchange Commission and leave it at that. Perceptions matter.

Romney may feel impatience with requirements that the political culture imposes on a presidential candidate that he feels are pointless (and inconvenient). But he’s a politician running for the highest office in the land, and his current posture is probably unsustainable. In all likelihood, he won’t be able to maintain a position that looks secretive and is a departure from campaign conventions. The only question is whether he releases more returns now, or later — after playing more defense on the issue and sustaining more hits. There will surely be a press feeding frenzy over new returns, but better to weather it in the middle of July.

If he releases more returns, Romney will be in a better position to resist the inevitable demands for even more disclosures.

* * *

By drawing out the argument over the returns, Romney is playing into the president’s hands. He should release them, respond to any attacks they bring, and move on.

Mittens Romney should follow the example set by his father, George Romney, who established the tradition of presidential candidates releasing their tax returns to the public in 1968, with the release of 12 years worth of tax returns. Mittens is dishonoring the ethical standards of his late father by his stubborn intransigence.

The Obama campaign has set up a new website, http://www.whatmittpays.com/. Check it out, then share it with your family, friends and business associates.

Fox News this morning deceptively edited President Obama's remarks to make it seem as though he was claiming that small business owners do not deserve any credit for their own success. But Obama's actual remarks show that he attributed the success of small businesses to both the individual drive of small business owners, and to the benefit provided by influences such as great teachers, and government-created infrastructure.

President Obama, during a July 13 appearance in Roanoke, VA, argued that while small business owners' individual talents and drive allow them to attain their own portion of the American dream, credit for such attainment is not theirs alone. Obama pointed out that the success of small businesses can also be attributed to outside influences such as "a great teacher somewhere in your life" and investment "in roads and bridges."

But on the July 16 edition of Fox & Friends, the co-hosts cropped the clip of Obama's appearance to make it appear as though he was making a different point. The clip featured Obama saying:

OBAMA: If you've got a business, you didn't build that, somebody else made that happen.

[...]

The point is that, when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.

I really do not see any upside to this for Mittens Romney after the beating he has been taking of late.

The Romneys will be going to the London Olympics to watch Ann Romney's horse, Rafalca, compete in "dressage" equestrian events.

According to the Olympics events calendar, individual dressage events are scheduled for August 2, 3, 7 and a medal round on August 9. I'm not sure if Rafalca is a team player, but team dressage events are scheduled for August 2 and 3, with a medal event on August 7.

Before she flew to London in early July with her Olympic teammates, Rafalca, whose chartered jet made use of the full length of the runway to ensure a gentle takeoff, stayed at Hamilton Farm in Gladstone, N.J. Once the 5,000-acre estate of the heir to a turn-of-the-century utility baron, the farm is now home to a private golf club and the U.S. Equestrian Team. Here, Rafalca, a 15-year-old German-born mare, lived under a vaulted, tile ceiling in a terrazzo-floored stable with brass fittings. She is one of the expertly trained and meticulously cared for horses representing the U.S. in dressage at the London 2012 Olympic Games. She is also the property of Ann Romney, wife of Republican presidential candidate Mitt.

* * *

Rafalca’s German-born rider is Jan Ebeling—whose wife, Amy, co-owns the horse along with Romney and another friend, Beth Meyer.

* * *

Probably the closest Olympic analog to dressage is figure skating. Horse and rider enter a 20-by-60-meter ring and perform a series of prescribed motions, or tests—such as trotting in place or pirouetting. At a later stage, there is a six-minute “freestyle” routine set to music. (At one competition, according to Dressage-News.com, Mitt himself picked songs from the soundtracks of Rain Man and The Mission.) A panel of judges looking for rhythm, ease, and precise gait scores the performance.

"A tiny number of Americans -- .26 percent -- give more than $200 to a congressional campaign. .05 percent give the maximum amount to any congressional candidate. .01 percent give more than $10,000 in any election cycle. And .000063 percent -- 196 Americans -- have given more than 80 percent of the super-PAC money spent in the presidential elections so far."

Here's what we must come to see: America has lost the capacity to govern. On a wide range of critical issues -- from global warming to tax reform, from effective financial regulation to real health-care change, from the deficit to defense spending -- we have lost the capacity to do anything other than suffer through a miserable status quo. If there is a ship of state, its rudder has been lost. We are drifting. We can't change course. And eventually, and with absolute certainty, in waters such as these, a drifting ship will sink.

The cause of this drift is clear, and it is not "polarization." Polarization -- of the political class at least -- is real. In Congress, it is worse than at any time since the Civil War.

But polarization is just a symptom of a more fundamental disease. It is fueled by this more fundamental disease. But it is this disease we must understand -- and cure -- if we're ever to restore this Republic.

That disease is just this: because of the way we fund the campaigns that determine our elections, we give the tiniest fraction of America the power to veto any meaningful policy change. Not just change on the left but also change on the right. Because of the structure of influence that we have allowed to develop, the tiniest fraction of the one percent have the effective power to block reform desired by the 99-plus percent.

[Las Vegas Sands Casino onwer Sheldon] Adelson pushed his chips to the center of the table, keeping his nerve even as his company teetered on the brink of bankruptcy in late 2008.

The Macau bet paid off, propelling Adelson into the ranks of the mega-rich and underwriting his role as the largest Republican donor in the 2012 campaign, providing tens of millions of dollars to Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and other GOP causes.

Now, some of the methods Adelson used in Macau to save his company and help build a personal fortune estimated at $25 billion have come under expanding scrutiny by federal and Nevada investigators, according to people familiar with both inquiries.

Internal email and company documents, disclosed here for the first time, show that Adelson instructed a top executive to pay about $700,000 in legal fees to Leonel Alves, a Macau legislator whose firm was serving as an outside counsel to Las Vegas Sands.

The company's general counsel and an outside law firm warned that the arrangement could violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. It is unknown whether Adelson was aware of these warnings. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act bars American companies from paying foreign officials to "affect or influence any act or decision" for business gain.

Federal investigators are looking at whether the payments violate the statute because of Alves' government and political roles in Macau, people familiar with the inquiry said. Investigators were also said to be separately examining whether the company made any other payments to officials. An email by Alves to a senior company official, disclosed by the Wall Street Journal, quotes him as saying "someone high ranking in Beijing" had offered to resolve two vexing issues — a lawsuit by a Taiwanese businessman and Las Vegas Sands' request for permission to sell luxury apartments in Macau. Another email from Alves said the problems could be solved for a payment of $300 million. There is no evidence the offer was accepted. Both issues remain unresolved.

As I said in the previous post, Arizona has more than its fair share of embarrassing politicians somehow elected to public office. But another contender for the title of "most embarrassing Arizona politician" is Crazy Uncle Joe Arpaio, who like Rep. Trent Franks, is a regular contributor/purveyor of World Net Daily wingnut conspiracy theories.

On Tuesday, Crazy Uncle Joe Arpaio and his 'cold case posse," pissing away state of Maricopa taxpayer's dollars on a new WND book by Jerome Corsi and Mike Zullo, will distract the media villagers from his upcoming racial profiling trial beginning on Thursday with a press conference that promises Now ‘indisputable proof’ of Obama forgery of the birth certificate:

At a news conference Tuesday in Phoenix that will be live-streamed by WND, Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his Cold Case Posse will present “indisputable proof” the Obama birth document released by the White House is a forgery, according to the posse’s lead investigator.

Mike Zullo said the new information was developed during an investigative trip to Hawaii in May.

The press conference will be held Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time at the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. [Local time will be 2:30 p.m., as Arizona does not observe Daylight Saving Time].

The investigative team also promises to release more conclusions drawn from computer analysis of the document the White House released April 27, 2011.

In other words, an instant replay of the crazy press conference from earlier this year with Zullo's bogus computer analysis, debunked numerous times over.

I am begging you, state of Maricopa residents, make this racist hate mongering embarrassment to dedicated law enforcement officers everywhere go away. Vote this egomaniacal clown out of office.

Arizona has more than its fair share of embarrassing politicians somehow elected to public office. But a contender for the title of "most embarrassing Arizona politician" is Rep. Trent Franks. This guy is such a rank embarrassment, the rest of Arizona has the right to demand from the constituents of his district "what the hell were you thinking?" Don't make the rest of Arizona come to your district to beat some sense into you. . . get rid of this clown!

Back in October 2009, "A quartet of Republican Congressmen, including Arizona's own Reps. Trent Franks and John Shadegg, convened a press conference this week to demand that the House Sergeant at Arms investigate the organization Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), because this advocacy organization does what every other advocacy organization does, but they do it while being Muslim."

RACHEL MADDOW: Do you think that the secret ploy to "Islamize" America starts with interns?

EUGENE ROBINSON: (laughing) Yeah, that's where you want to start. You know the interns, they're the one's who control the real power on Capitol Hill. If you get the interns then you've got the whole city, and then you've got the world! You know this would be funny, it actually brings to mind that other great old movie Doctor Strangelove and General Jack D. Ripper and the plot he perceived to zap and impurity all our precious bodily fluids, that's kind of the way they sounded. But it's not funny, because it's dangerous and bigoted...

George Bush after 9/11, from the beginning, tried to make clear to everyone that the war on terror that he was prepared to wage was not a war against Islam, that this was not a religious war, that this was not a clash of civilizations, yet World Net Daily clearly didn't get the memo, and nor, amazingly, did some members of the U.S. Congress, and this is really scary stuff in that sense.

Our lawless state legislature and Governor are like a full employment program for lawyers and judges. Tea-Publican authoritarianism and religious extremism leads them to violate the law and the constitution constantly. How many times do they have to be beat down by the Arizona Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court?

Planned Parenthood asked a federal judge Monday to block a new law which would bar it from getting state Medicaid funds.

The complaint says the Legislature acted illegally in approving a measure which forbids any funding from the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, the state's health insurance for the poor, to any organization which also provides abortions. It asks Judge Neil Wake to prohibit Arizona from implementing the law as scheduled on Aug. 2 and, eventually, to declare it void and unenforceable.

* * *

According to the lawsuit, Planned Parenthood has more than 66,000 patient visits a year, including about 3,000 from those eligible for AHCCCS. Services provided include pap smears, breast exams, contraceptives and tests and treatments for sexually transmitted diseases.

It also provides abortions at five of its 13 Arizona locations.

Current federal law precludes Medicaid funding for abortions except in narrow circumstances.

Lawyer/lobbyist Michael Liburdi for the secretive GOP redistricting organization FAIR Trust is also representing the GOP-backed Save Our Vote Committee in a ballot challenge against the Open Elections/Open Government Act initiative.

Foes of an open primary system filed suit Monday to knock the measure off the November ballot.

Attorney Michael Liburdi claims the initiative is far more complex than simply setting up a system where all candidates of all parties run against each other in a primary and the top two face off in the general election. He said the measure has "a legion of unintended consequences.''

More to the legal point, Liburdi said the initiative seeks the change via an amendment to the state constitution. But he said the constitution itself requires that amendments be limited to only a single subject to keep voters from being put into a situation where they have to support provisions they do not want to get the ones that they do. [the "single subject" rule]

He is asking Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Mark Brain to block county officials from putting the measure on the ballot. And Liburdi said if it gets to be too late to do that, he wants a court order precluding the votes for or against it from being counted.

The lawsuit was expected, with Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, a foe of the initiative, raising the legal questions last week.

StopTopTwo.orgOpposes top-two primary proposals across the U.S., including the Open Elections/Open Government initiativeFounder and CEO: Christina Tobin, head of Free & Equal Elections Foundation, former ballot access coordinator for Ralph Nader’s 2008 presidential campaign and Libertarian candidate for California secretary of state in 2010

President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama were taking in Monday night's USA Basketball exhibition game when the Verizon Center's "Kiss Cam" turned its eye their way. Their image on the huge arena screen prompted the crowd to cheer — a not-so-subtle hint that Obama plant one on the first lady.

Both smiled, but Obama just put his arm around his wife as the game resumed. That cautious reaction brought some boos.

Obama got a do-over later in the game when the Kiss Cam swung back his way. This time he delivered, giving Mrs. Obama a big kiss on the lips. And a peck on the forehead for good measure. And the crowd cheered.

Ouch! Heinz received most of his donations in the last two weeks of June after the Special Election, and after Ron Barber cast a couple of inexplicable votes for which he has been roundly criticized by Democrats.

Which may explain the press release today from his opponent, Matt Heinz, trying to manufacture outrage (for fundraising purposes) where I believe "outrage" is unwarranted in this instance, especially since this story is from last week -- suspect timing given the above report:

The Arizona legislature froze enrollment in the state's Medicaid system (AHCCCS) for chidless adults last year to balance the state budget. In a lawsuit challenging the budget cuts under Prop. 200 (2000), the Arizona Supreme Court wussed out relying on the political question doctrine of separation of powers to hold that the legislature has discretion to make budget decisions despite the citizens initiative, which takes precedence over simple legisaltive acts. I would argue the decision also eviscerated Prop. 105 (1998), the Voter Protection Act (apparently not so much).

[The Affordable Care Act] which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld last month incentivizes states to open their Medicaid rolls to more people beginning in 2014. Though the court struck down the penalties to states that don’t do so, the federal government still plans to dramatically increase the amount of money it gives to states to cover those new health care costs.

In particular, that money will cover much of the cost for states to include childless adults – the same group of Arizonans who were directly affected by the AHCCCS enrollment freeze.

Currently, the federal government covers 66 percent of the costs for that population.

But the match increases to roughly 74 percent in 2014 and continues to grow in subsequent years, reaching 91.5 percent in 2020.

Legislative budget analysts say that restoring the coverage for childless adults means lowering the cost for existing participants by $217 million, and that, in turn, will offset the cost of letting in new enrollees.

The bottom line, the analysts determined, is that the state could improve its financial position by $51 million by 2015 if it lifts the enrollment freeze.

Last week, Willard "Mittens" Romney met with Darth Vader Dick Cheney in his secret lair deep inside Devil's Tower in Wyoming. (This is only a slight exaggeration). The media was prohibited from being in earshot of this meeting or from taking any photographs.

Cheney introduced Romney and said he was confident the former Massachusetts governor would lead the nation through an unanticipated crisis such as the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

“I’m convinced that in addition to all of these other qualifications that you all know about, when I think about the kind of individual I want in the Oval Office in that moment of crisis, who has to make those key decisions, some of them life-and-death decisions, decisions as the commander in chief, who has the responsibility for sending our young men and women in harm’s way – that man’s Mitt Romney,” Cheney said.

Let's be clear: everyone from a platoon leader, to the captain of a ship, to the CEO of a corporation, to the president of the United States is responsible for what happens on their watch. As President Harry Truman said, "the buck stops here."

But for the past 10 years, Mittens Romney has been running away from responsibility and passing the buck for what the public views negatively as the dark side of vulture capitalism during his watch at the helm of Bain Capital between 1999-2002 (even though he got fabulously wealthy from its success).

It looks like the Friday news dump by Willard "Mittens" Romney to try to push back against his record at Bain Capital after February 1999 has failed. The conservative Sunday morning bobbleheads turned on Mittens today, insisting that he come clean by releasing his tax records.

WILL: Look, what Mitt Romney has said is he has released, and I quote, "all that's necessary for people to understand something about my finances." Now, the something is a pregnant word. And people are going to say there's -- the cost of not releasing the returns are clear. Therefore, he must have calculated that there are higher costs in releasing them.

* * *

WILL: [Responding to Mary Matalin] But Mary, is it not what you call a "real fact" that Mitt Romney gave to the McCain campaign, when it was considering him as a running mate, 23 years of tax returns?

In this same program, former Bush-Cheney 2004 chief strategist Matthew Dowd agreed:

DOWD: Mary, you know -- you know -- you know, if -- if that was -- that if you -- I said that's truth serum in that cup, and you were advising a candidate like Mitt Romney in this instance, you would say, "We've got to get this out there." You would say, "We've got to get this out there to deal with this."

They were responding to Democratic strategist Donna Brazile's earlier statement:

A corporate document filed with the state of Massachusetts in December 2002 -- a month after Romney was elected governor -- lists him as one of two managing members of Bain Capital Investors, LLC "authorized to execute, acknowledge, deliver and record any recordable instrument purporting to affect an interest in real property, whether to be recorded with a Registry of Deeds or with a District Office of the Land Court."

In August 2011, Romney told federal authorities, [in a public financial disclosure form], that he "retired from Bain Capital on February 11, 1999 to head the Salt Lake Organizing Committee [for the 2002 Winter Olympics]. Since February 11, 1999, Mr. Romney has not had any active role with any Bain Capital entity and has not been involved in the operations of any Bain Capital entity in any way."

Bain Capital Investors is a Bain Capital entity.

Previously reported evidence shows that Romney was listed as the CEO, chairman and president of the company after 1999 in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission; took a six-figure salary; signed corporate documents related to major and minor deals and attended board meetings for at least two Bain-affiliated companies. The state document was filed two and a half years after Romney now says he retired from the company, demonstrating his deep and ongoing connection to the firm.

The mountain of evidence that Romney had a connection to the firm after 1999 leaves him with two possible explanations, neither of them politically appealing: Either Romney was officially in charge of the company but took no actual responsibility for it, or he was involved then and is either lying or shading the truth now.

As the documentary evidence makes clear, Mittens Romney was at Bain Capital until 2002. He testified under oath at trial in 2002 that he was still active in business in Massachusetts in order to maintain that he had remained a resident of Massachusetts to meet the seven year residency requirement to run for governor. Old Romney Testimony Undermines Today's Bain Claims.

This new Obama campaign ad, "Firms," is running in nine swing states. The ad ties together the offshoring jobs charges to Mitt Romney’s offshore bank accounts. It is set to Mittens singing "America the Beautiful." Well-done, devastating ad. Video below the fold.

The lawsuit alleges that officers based some traffic stops on the race of people in the vehicles and made the stops so they could inquire about their immigration status.

Arpaio denies the racial profiling allegation, saying people pulled over in the sweeps were approached because deputies had probable cause to believe they had committed crimes.

During the patrols known as sweeps, deputies flood an area of a city — in some cases, heavily Latino areas — over several days to seek out traffic violators and arrest other offenders.

Illegal immigrants accounted for 57 percent of the 1,500 people arrested in the 20 sweeps conducted by his office since January 2008, according to figures provided by Arpaio’s office.

The people who filed the lawsuit aren’t seeking damages and instead want Arpaio to enact changes to guard against what they said is discriminatory policing at his agency. Still, the plaintiff attorneys can seek reimbursement for their time and costs if they win.

Putting the emphasis on the "crazy" in Crazy Uncle Joe, Arpaio has called a press conference this week for his Cold Case Posse "Birther" conspiracy. Given that this investigation is run by Mike Zullo and Jerome Corsi who write material for the wingnut conspiracy central World Net Daily, what's next? Is President Obama the love child of a space alien from Planet Kolob? Arpaio is wasting public tax money on this tabloid trash. Arpaio using deputy to help in Obama birth investigation.

Joe Arpaio disgraces his office and is an embarrassment to all the dedicated law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line in service to the public. Joe Arpaio is a clown who only serves his enormous ego and constant need for public attention. The voters of the state of Maricopa need to pull their heads out of their asses and vote this embarrassing clown out of office.

The Political Calendar is posted on Sundays. Please send us notice of your political events prior to the Sunday before your event (7 days would be most helpful). See the calendar icon in the right-hand column of the blog page for easy access to the calendar.

The pretty boys and girls who populate the corporate television media today are unworthy of the title of journalist. They demean the giants who preceded them like Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, and many others.

On a Friday night news dump, Willard "Mittens" Romney scheduled interviews with five television networks to essentially repeat his campaign's talking point that he had no operational control of Bain Capital or any other Bain entity after February 1999. Romney dismissed numerous SEC filings bearing his name and signature up until 2002, when he was on a leave of absence from Bain Capital, as mere "legal technicalities." Pishaw.

Instead of leaving in 1999, Romney suggested in his testimony that he only left Bain after the Olympics in 2002: “I left on the basis of a leave of absence indicating that I, by virtue of that title, would return at the end of the Olympics to my employment at Bain Capital, but subsequently decided not to do so and entered into a departure agreement with my former partners. I use that in the colloquial sense, not legal sense, but my former partners."

The opening statement delivered by Romney's lawyer in that 2002 hearing said Romney "continued to serve on the board of directors of a significant Massachusetts company and to return here for most of its board meetings."

“Mr. Romney retired from Bain Capital on February 11, 1999 to head the Salt Lake Organizing Committee. Since February 11, 1999, Mr. Romney has not had any active role with any Bain Capital entity and has not been involved in the operations of any Bain Capital entity in any way.”

Not one of these reporters presented the documentary evidence and asked Romney the key question: "In your 2002 trial testimony, you indicated that you left Bain Capital in 2002, but in your 2011 public financial disclosure form, under penalty of perjury, you state that you left Bain Capital in February 1999. Both sworn statements cannot be true. Were you lying to qualify for the Massachusetts ballot in 2002, or are you lying now?" (Lawyers love this question).

Earlier this year our Tea-Publican legislature pased the most restrictive abortion law in the nation. It bans abortions after 20 weeks, but has a unique provision for calculating the start of the 20 weeks from the date of the woman's last menstrual period. As critics pointed out at the time, this means that a woman could be deemed pregnant two weeks before having had sexual intercourse -- talk about your miraculous conception!

Three Arizona abortion providers went to federal court Thursday to try to block an Arizona law that bans most abortions beginning at 20 weeks.

They are seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the law before it takes effect Aug.2.

The suit alleges the legislation violates the protections outlined in the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision, which permits abortions before a fetus is viable. Medical experts and abortion clinics typically consider a fetus viable at 22 to 24 weeks. The suit states that the only exception to the new 20-week ban in the Arizona law is so narrow it "places significant burdens on the health of some women seeking abortion care."

The trial has wrapped up with closing argments on Friday morning. Based upon this reporting from the Dallas Morning News, it isn't looking good for the state of Texas -- the judges appear inclined to uphold the voting rights of minority voters under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Texas Voter ID Trial: Closing Arguments:

A 3-judge panel will now decide whether to let Texas implement its controversial voter ID law.

In closing arguments at federal court, a lawyer for the state, John Hughes, insisted that even if non-white Texans lack an acceptable photo ID under the law, the “ultimate question” for the judges to consider is whether that disparity translates into people being turned away from the polls.

* * *

“People who want to vote already have an ID or can easily obtain it,” he insisted repeatedly. He noted that the Justice Department – which refused to let the state implement the law, prompting the state to turn to the federal courts – claims that 1.5 million Texas voters lack an acceptable photo ID.

* * *

The judges seemed deeply skeptical. “The record does tell us that there is a substantial number of registered voters that lack photo ID,” said U.S. Circuit Court Judge David Tatel.

And District Court Judge Robert Wilkins noted that there was uncontested evidence that some Texans would have to travel 120 miles one way to the nearest state office where they could obtain a voter ID card – and that federal court rules bar subpoenas for anyone more than 100 miles from a courthouse on grounds that would be “unduly burdensome.”

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